Hatsumode 初詣

The obligatory passage of the new year

The Hatsumode is the very first visit to the temple in the New Year. The Japanese are very attached to this tradition, bringing crowds to the largest shrines in Tokyo on the first three days of January, as they do throughout the land.

To help visitors endure the long wait in the cold, food and drink stalls are set up at the entrance to temples and shrines. In Tokyo, the Yasukuni-Jinja and Kanda-Myojin shrines even offer sake and Tokyo Daijingu, a red bean soup, to share all and more pleasantly, this important moment.

Here is the list of the most visited places for the hatsumode (of the first three days of the year):

 

  • Meiji-Jingu (Harajuku, Tokyo): the most visited Shinto shrine each year for hatsumode, with nearly 3,200,000 people visiting this green oasis in the heart of Tokyo.

     

Foule au temple Sensô-ji d'Asakusa

Crowd at Sensō-ji temple in Asakusa during the hatsumōde on January 1

Jerome Laborde

In a Shinto shrine: 1. Bow, 2. Ring the bell to announce your arrival, 3. Put a coin in the trunk, 4. Bow twice, clap your hands twice, and again bow once, 5. Bow one last time before leaving the temple.

 

 

In a Buddhist temple: 1. Bow, 2. Ring the bell, 3. Put a coin in the trunk, 4. Pray with both hands joined in front of the chest, 5. Bow.

 

 

Hatsumôde à Tokyo

Hatsumode in Tokyo

Pixabay

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